Rear Hydraulic Landing Gear - Corrosion

[MooseSuite]

After our first trip with the MS, I noticed rust showing on the rear landing gear shrouds which are directly behind the wheels.

Is this a concern and/or should mud flaps be installed for protection?

thanks

PS - What a great, quality product! We are so pleased thus far.

[Hobo]

correction

[ChrisM]

I'm guessing that by "shrouds" you mean the outer housing. I wouldn't be terribly concerned about rust, but some sort of mudflap to keep all that road debris from blasting it sounds like a pretty good idea.

[Hobo]

I was thinking the cylinder rams rusting. on the above post so I just deleted it

[Motor31]

As long as you have a good mounting situation, mud flaps shouldn't do any harm.

As far as the shroud is concerned you can steel brush the rust out and apply some black rattle can paint to keep it in check. Be careful with over spray.

[bstark]

You've just woke me up to something I need to address. Yep, I'm going to be looking into mudflaps as well. One of the weak points in any hydraulic ram system is the cylinder rods themselves becoming pitted with corrosion and ruining the wiper seals within the cylinders. Any steps we can take to inhibit road salt & debris contact with those rods would be a good thing.

The other concern is the bottom half of the "shroud" is actually a guide that travels inside the top portion and keeps the foot at a 7 degree-from-vertical angle to provide the stability when those two rear rams are both pushing upwards AND inwards slightly. Rust building up on the outside of that inner shroud will inhibit it's freedom of movement and perhaps degrade the performance of the rams.

[2 DA WDS]

When we picked ours up from the dealer he recommended having a metal flap welded in to protect the hydraulics if a tire came apart. We have not done that but if you were to install mudflaps that probably would be the way to go.

[rverdlm]

2 DA WDS, I thought about adding a metal shield in case of tire failure, but after further thought I decided not to. The metal would need to be very strong and cover a lot of area to be effective. Even then I'm not sure all damage could be prevented. I had several tire failures on my first trailer, but had no damage. I think it's because I caught them and stopped immediately. I decided my money would be better spent with a tire monitor system. Even then there are no guarantees. I've seen tires loose the tread and stay hard for several miles. If that tread should go inward instead of outward it could do a lot of damage.